Business Process Management

BPM Interim report

13/2/02

7:34 am

Page 1

A REPORT BY CSC’S RESEARCH SERVICES

The Emergence of
Business Process
Management
January 2002
Version 1.0

BPM Interim report

13/2/02

7:34 am

Page 1

Contents
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .2
Section 1
Understanding BPM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . .3
Section 2
Implementing BPM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .31
Section 3
Frequently Asked Questions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .43

Appendix
1. BPM Summit Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .76
2. Summary of BPML Semantics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .80
3. Business Process Management
Initiative (BPMI.org) . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .86
Authors
Howard Smith
Douglas Neal
Lynette Ferrara
Francis Hayden
Research Assistant
Elayne Foster
Editors
Nick Morgan
Anne Pappenheim

The research in this report is based in part upon information collected at the Business Process
Management Summit held on 27 September 2001, by NetMarkets Europe and CSC's Research
Services, and supportedby BPMI.org. At this conference, 93 delegates from Fortune 500 companies
used networked laptops to respond in real time to the presentations about Business Process
Management and to participate in workshops, and to answer specific questions posed by researchers.
CSC co-chairs the BPMI.org with Intalio and participated in the development of BPML with other
leading companies.

1 BusinessProcess Management
© CSC’s Research Services 2002
Version 1.0

BPM Interim report

13/2/02

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Introduction
Book Review
James Champy and Michael Hammer
are back with new insights into how
process thinking can reduce cost and
create value in the digital economy.
In tough times, process thinking moves
to the top of the business and IT
agenda. In the early 1990’s, MichaelHammer and James Champy’s
Reengineering the Corporation showed
how the fundamental rethinking and
radical redesign of business processes
achieved dramatic improvements in
cost, quality and service and speed.
Now both Hammer and Champy have
produced new books that update and
reinterpret the key messages
of reengineering.
The key message of Hammer’s The
Agenda – What Every Business MustDo to
Dominate the Decade is “Put Processes
First”. He advocates extending process
thinking across the value chain, and
makes a strong case for metrics-based
business process management.
Champy’s X-Engineering the Corporation
shows how all processes must be
designed around customer pull, then
pushed out to the rest of the supply
chain. It provides concrete suggestions
for tacklingbusiness process and
technology issues within your company
and across your value chain.This book
will convince your management that
they should consider business
process management.
The new books share three themes.
First, your processes exist to deliver
value – lower prices, better quality,
faster speed and better service – to
your customers. Second, your processes
must, therefore, bedesigned with your
customers’ needs in mind.Third,
competitive advantage comes not from
your strategy but from your ability to
execute the business processes that
carry out your strategy. If you are
beginning a process management
initiative, read both books. Each author
provides a unique point of view,
compelling case studies and a useful
overview of how your business
must change to thrivein a
process-based economy.

Most changes in technology have only an incremental effect on the way we do
business, but once in a while a new technology creates a fundamental change. The
Internet (and in particular email and the world wide web) was one. We believe
that BPM is another.
The drivers for BPM are not technological but economic. The two dominant
economic trends today are...